


A Quiet Night In

by scullyseviltwin



Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti)
Genre: Happy Ending, M/M, a reference to Trader Joe's Indian food, also a reference to Jenny Slate so there's that as well, turns out going to therapy is a good thing, unapologetic fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-30
Updated: 2019-10-30
Packaged: 2021-01-13 11:27:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,021
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21243335
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scullyseviltwin/pseuds/scullyseviltwin
Summary: Richie’s learning that a lot of things aren’t hyperbolic when you’re in a relationship with someone you love, and ain’t that a trip. All of that shit he’d rolled his eyes at before when people would speak about it, he understands. He does miss Eddie the second he leaves for work in the morning, he does want Eddie’s voice to be the last he hears before he goes to sleep.Etcetera, etcetera to infinity.





	A Quiet Night In

Richie is in the zone. Laptop on his knees, he’s knocking out rough jokes left and right, rearranging them, setting up a pretty fucking great outline for a tight thirty. God, he hasn’t felt like this since, since…

Since he was doing stand up in Chicago; that had been fifteen odd years ago, and he’d been in the throes of becoming an alcoholic because of all the pressure to be  _ funny _ in  _ Chicago _ , but he’d been on fire back then.

It feels nice to be churning out the good shit, really, actually great. And without the unhealthy drinking habits. 

He’s had CNN on most of the day, has been giving it his attention from time to time. He’s never been a performer who leans _ too _ into politics, but shit, as an openly gay comedian he kind of feels like it’s his duty. 

And also just fuck that orange fuck, right?

He’s also working on some stuff for  _ Lovett or Leave It _ , and really wants to get a handle on this impeachment process. He really wants to be on point for that one, because he’s a fan of the podcast, and he’ll be on stage opposite Jenny Slate who is ridiculous and charming and he adores but definitely doesn’t want to be overshadowed by.

Richie doesn’t realize how late it is until he hears Eddie swearing, jostling his way through the front door. 

“Fucking traffic,” he growls, dropping two large, paper bags on the floor just inside the door. “I swear to god, you have five fucking lanes of highway and you can’t get anywhere in under an hour.”

He huffs, unslings his crossbody bag and bends to untie his loafers; Richie watches, fond and a little turned on with Eddie’s ass pert and upturned and just  _ right there _ . “I hate this damn city.”

His chin hooks on the back of the sofa and he bats his eyelids coquettishly. “But you love me?” Richie tries and Eddie huffs before straightening.

He does that thing where he sighs a little and smiles and Richie’s heart throbs—actually throbs—in his chest. “Yes, and that’s this city’s only saving grace. Richie Tozier is the only thing that makes Los Angeles remotely palatable. What are you up to?”

“Hm, working on stuff for Largo, and for Lovett.”

Eddie laughs, undoing his skinny tie. “God, you’ve got such a crush on that dude.”

“Tell me that he and Ronan aren’t couple goals!”

Eddie makes a noise that means he’s conceded the point. 

He goes through his evening ritual and Richie swings himself so he’s lying flat on the sofa to watch.    
  
Eddie begins with plucking off his blazer; Richie had bought him this suit on a whim. It’s a lightly tartan weave, dark greens and blues, and he’d tripped over it in a catalog he’d been idly flipping through while procrastinating. Richie thinks that it’s maybe the thing he’s happiest he spent money on because it makes Eddie look cool and hip and refined and unbelievably fuckable.

When Eddie finally gets out of his shirt and strips down to his undershirt, Richie finds that his mouth is watering. Like,  _ actually  _ watering. Honestly, he thought that was just an exaggeration of what happened to people when they wanted to _ bite _ a person. 

He’s lying on the sofa just wanting to bite Eddie. It’s strange, thrilling in a base sort of way—wanting to mark, lay claim to someone—makes him think for the umpteenth time about love and fate and want and desire.

Richie’s learning that a lot of things aren’t hyperbolic when you’re in a relationship with someone you love, and ain’t that a trip. All of that shit he’d rolled his eyes at before when people would speak about it, he understands. He  _ does _ miss Eddie the second he leaves for work in the morning, he  _ does  _ want Eddie’s voice to be the last he hears before he goes to sleep.

Etcetera, etcetera to infinity.

It’d been a total revelation, realizing that he could want like this—wholly, in an all-consuming sort of way that should be scary but for some reason really isn’t—and have. Sometimes it’s just nice to sit in the feeling and let it transform and shift, fill him up with its rightness. 

Eddie moves half-dressed across the foyer and through the living room, en route to the bedroom and Richie watches him go, pleased just to watch his arms move at his sides as he walks. “Stop looking at my ass,” Eddie calls over his shoulder, getting it wrong, but it’s fine.

“But it’s so cute!” Richie chouts back sweetly. 

Eddie’s head pops around the hallway corner to glare at him, “My ass isn’t cute, dickhead.”

“No,” Richie breathes and settles himself so he’s reclining with his hands behind his head, laid back. “It’s glorious. Pert but not too big. Fits perfectly in my hands. And it’s just so fuckable.” His voice is crooning and cloying but Richie means it. 

“Damn right,” Eddie bites, winks, and disappears again. 

Richie grins to himself—he’s not an asshole, he also sends a thank you to the great Turtle God in the Sky for moments like this—and levers himself up from the couch. He brings the bags through the dining room to the kitchen, and leans in to unload the purchases. 

Almond milk, dishwasher tabs, pasta and—

“Edward Ephraim Kaspbrak the Third,” Richie gasps and holds the box to his chest. “You absolute clairvoyant of a man!”

Eddie shuffles into the kitchen, clad in ratty sweatpants and a too-tight henley—which, come on!—his feet adorable in the chunky, puffy Dodgers slippers Richie had gifted him for Christmas. “You fucker, my middle name is Josef and yeah, I had a craving for Indian.”

They heat up the various dishes in the oven and microwave, Eddie leaning back against the kitchen island with his arms crossed against his chest. Richie tidies as he listens, falling into the good habits that Eddie had all but forced into him.

Richie loves evenings like this, where they have no plan at all, just go with the flow and check out what’s on Hulu that they’ve been meaning to get to. It’s so utterly domestic and safe and boring that it makes these moments seem almost impossible; they’re simple and utterly theirs. 

It’s funny, that Richie hadn’t known that  _ this _ was what he’d been missing his entire life. Physically, he always knew it’d been  _ something _ . Even when he’d forgotten Eddie, even when there was nothing but haziness when he thought about his past, he knew, specifically, that there was something that he was devoid of. Now, with Eddie taking up the right side of the bed, filling their refrigerator full of kale and their cupboards full of quinoa, screaming at him about the mildew in the master bath, he finds that he feels... 

Really fucking whole. 

Eddie is slipping into a recollection of how his coworker Dara totally shut down a misogynist in their regional meeting when Richie breaks his stride en route to the sink, steps back the way he came and dips his head down. He’s not sure if he takes it or if Eddie offers it, but they fall into a languid push and pull, heat but not  _ too  _ much in the lick of their tongues. 

They stop when the timer for the samosas sounds and Richie doesn’t feel disappointed or interrupted; Eddie’s here. For now and always, there’s time, and every time he remembers that, it blows his fucking mind.

They knock shoulders and shove one another against the island as they mete out their rations and take their plates into the living room. Richie grabs placemats and napkins, and Eddie gets the wine. They feast on microwaved Indian and one of Richie’s better bottles of cab sauv and it’s incredible, ten out of ten, better than any of the places over in Boyle Heights.

Eddie sits, moving his plate from his lap to the coffee table and back, commenting on how garlicky the naan is and how much he likes it. Richie tops up his wine and Eddie drinks, indulgent.

It had taken Eddie a while to get here, to relax into a life with Richie in Los Angeles. Therapy had done him a lot of good in terms of unraveling many of the misconceptions that his toxic relationships had informed upon his life. But Richie had done a little pushing in a few areas, too.

When Eddie had essentially moved himself into Richie’s, telling him that he was there, in L.A. and the least Richie could do was  _ house him _ , Richie had hired a house cleaner. Eddie had balked in the way that made it seem like the world was ending and had huffed and puffed for a whole week. How was Richie sure that this person would clean the apartment properly? How did he know that the products were both effective and eco-friendly?   
  


Richie had simply asked Eddie to trust him and when Eddie had come home, the evening after Karla and her team’s first cleaning, he’d almost wept out of gratitude. “The… the bathrooms are so… they’re just so… they actually fucking sparkle!”

“This is Los Angeles, my dude,” Richie had told him calmly, “these people are literal pros because they have to be. Jesus, imagine cleaning Tom Cruise’s place? Imagine the fallout if you didn’t dust the E meters?”

Richie had made some concessions even as he’s tried to push Eddie out of his comfort zone. Yes, he was juicing more, and working out three times a week so that his “heart didn’t explode,” but he was also putting things like Pop Tarts and maple smoked bacon on the shopping list and insisting Eddie try everything, please please please just  _ try _ . He’d make yogurt sound like a goddamned dream until Eddie had caved and shoveled down two Noosas in a row, effectively proving that he wasn’t  _ actually _ lactose intolerant. 

Thankfully, Eddie hadn’t stopped there and leaned in to his curious nature regarding food, making reservations at restaurants that Richie hadn’t even heard of. Yes, he had to listen to Eddie explain the difference between a gastropub and a brasserie every time they went out to dinner, but it was worth it. He had been the reason that Richie tried Afghan food for the first time. 

They decide against Hulu and go with the weird. German, time travel show on Netflix. It’s so dark, and they fight over turning off motion smoothing before deciding that neither one of them wants to get off of the couch to grab the remote.

Richie reaches over and steals the last of Eddie’s naan and Eddie actually lets him, mutters a “dick” for it, but lets it go. 

That’s interesting; normally, Eddie would smack Richie’s hand away, or reach over and steal whatever had been stolen right back. Instead, he keeps his eyes forward on the television. Richie take an inventory, notices that his hand is shaking when he reaches for his wine. 

Eddie is taut, coiled like a spring. Not that Eddie being keyed up isn’t normal, but there’s no reason for him to be, not right now. Richie places his utensils neatly on the edge of his place and asks, “What’s up?”

Eddie swallows a sip of wine, shaking his head. He flicks his gaze to Richie briefly but it snaps back, so he’s looking straight ahead. “Hm? Oh nothing.”

“Nice try, bitch,” Richie says, low and careful, as though Eddie doesn’t know that Richie knows when there’s something up with him. “Eds,” Richie implores him, and it’s not like he does this all the time. Normally, Richie won’t pry like this unless he knows something is wrong. And something is clearly, at the very least,  _ up _ . 

Eddie’s eyes go from the television to Richie’s face and back again, his mouth winding tight before pressing into a thin line. When he looks back at Richie again, Richie meets his gaze head on, and just waits, brows raised. “Fuck you, man,” Eddie whispers in that way that’s a little needy and Richie knows he’s going to give in. “I just…”

A sudden, vicious thing roils through Richie. It’s a tendency that he’s almost defeated, the sick, snap deciding that  _ this, _ this thing that’s troubling Eddie must mean something bad-terrible-awful because he and Eddie aren’t meant to last; Richie’s own therapist has accompanied him along _ that  _ fucked path enough times that he’s actually working on it, and diligently.

Still, old fucking habits. 

Richie places his plate back down on the table and draws up a knee, swiveling to face Eddie. He doesn’t push or pry; if Eddie really doesn’t want to talk about it, he trusts him. But jesus christ does he want to know, for his own sanity. It’s selfish and it’s stupid but if Eddie doesn’t tell him what’s going on, it’s all he’s going to be able to think about until Eddie tells him. 

“I was just,” Eddie begins, licking his lips and putting his own plate on the table. He mirrors Richie’s posture, takes a sip of wine and then another, larger gulp. “At Trader Joe’s today, I got like, stupid excited for how excited  _ you _ would be if I brought Indian home.”

“That was tight, thank you,” Richie concedes calmly, knowing that Eddie needs a moment before carrying on and Richie—as always—is happy to fill the silence.

Eddie says nothing about Richie’s use of “tight” and so, he knows that this conversation  _ is _ actually serious.

“And it was weird, I thought. I mean. I want to keep doing shit like that, I want to keep feeling like that, making you happy, and it made me think, oh shit, I think I want to do this forever.” Eddie finishes, quiet and reserved, his teeth catching his bottom lip just the tiniest bit. 

“Like,” Richie breathes in; he’s worth this, he knows he’s worth this but fuck, this is something he can’t say he expected right in this moment, on a random Tuesday night in October. 

He definitely, definitely did not expect  _ this _ . 

He’s never really dared to dream about this, about Eddie wanting him this much, about Eddie wanting him to be the only person for him, of Eddie  _ choosing _ him. He’s gotten as far as, “You deserve good things,” in his therapy, but hasn’t really breached any ground on “You deserve to want things that are good because you are good,” so this is a little bit difficult to believe. 

“Forever?” Richie clarifies, quietly. 

Eddie presses his lips together and glances towards the kitchen, a little bit of manic energy making its way through his body. But he stays, he sits there before Richie and takes a long, slow breath. “I don’t have a ring or anything-”

“Shit, oh my fuck.”

“I didn’t, you know, plan this, uh. Shit. But I want to marry you, Rich. I,  _ fuck _ , I do wish I had a ring, what kind of asshole doesn’t have a ring,” Eddie slides off of the couch and goes to his knee, reaches out and cups Richie’s left hand in both of his own. 

Richie’s eyes burn, but Eddie is already crying a little bit, so, whatever, he’s crying too. 

“Will. You,” Eddie speak the first two words succinctly.    
  
But the last two are more breathed, only breath, so quiet that if Richie hadn’t been watching his mouth, he wouldn’t have understood them. And it’s like Richie exists on infinite planes, bigger than his body and his mind. Maybe this is what tripping balls is like because it feels like his entire body is static and he’s waiting to fall directly off of a cliff and he’s suddenly sweaty and shaking and nauseous and everything  _ tingles _ . “Marry me.”

It’s not a question really, but a yearning, a daring hope, and Richie can hear it in his voice. He can hear the tiny sliver of apprehension Eddie’s eyes are shining and so  _ big  _ and scared but determined and holy shit, Richie might physically blow apart with the power, the absolute certainty of what he feels.    
  
“Yes please,” Richie says and it’s immediate and it’s ridiculous and not what he meant to say and his face screws up with how stupid it sounds to his own ears but he doesn’t give a fuck because Eddie just asked him to marry him and he’s so,  _ so _ fucking in.

“Cool,” Eddie says on a laugh and then surges up, tackling Richie back onto the couch. “Love you,” he gasps as Richie weaves his arms around him.

Richie says it into Eddie’s mouth before Eddie tips them gently into a pretty intense make out session. They peter out with pecks against noses and cheeks, and finally, Eddie settles against the back of the couch, smushed and sweaty against Richie.

It’s so, so good.

Richie’s rests his palm against Eddie’s cheek, right over the fading scar. “You’re locking yourself down to this,” and he does a giant sweep of his body with his arm.

Eddie rolls his eyes, “Stop it, Rich, just…” He shifts a little bit, presses himself up on an elbow so he’s looming over him. “I love you. You’re it. You’ve always been it.”

Richie doesn’t know how to feel about that, other than incredibly lucky and overwhelmed and ecstatic, so he closes his eyes tightly and breathes. “Fuck, I know, I’m… you too.” Richie’s eyes pop open. “Obviously.”

Eddie’s smile is slow and perhaps the sweetest thing he’s ever seen. His forehead creases adorably, just  _ so _ , “Good, because I’m going to fucking  _ marry _ you.”

Richie presses his hands into his face because he’s smiling like a goon, like a fucking idiot because he can’t stop it, can’t stop the absolutely joy that’s bursting from him. “But I still want a huge fucking rock, babe,” Richie breathes into his mouth and Eddie laughs, even as he takes Richie for another, sweeter kiss. 

“You think I’m not going to get you a ring, you’re insane,” Eddie says and smacks him lightly on the side of the face.

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> check me out on [tumblr](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/scullyseviltwin) and [twitter](https://twitter.com/scullyseviltwin)


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